Kristof Talks Idealism at KSG

Nicholas D. Kristof ’82 delivered the farewell address at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) Class Day graduation ceremonies yesterday before a packed audience, but in the eyes of one spectator, his speech was not the top ticket in town.

The two-time Pulitzer prize winning journalist, who brought his young daughter with him to the event, opened his remarks with an account of how the younger Kristof had expressed a desire to go see former president Bill Clinton—on hand for Class Day ceremonies at the College—instead of listen to her father.

The amused patriarch, clad in a neat coat-and-tie ensemble, went on to deliver an anecdote-laden address extolling the importance of travel and diverse experiences to the cultivation of perspective and the pursuit of positive change.

“Unless [idealism] is really anchored to empiricism...it doesn’t really make great policy,” said Kristof, who had earlier used the Iraq war as an example of a “mistake” made because of a lack of people “who really understood the world at a grassroots level.”

To illustrate the gap between textbook and empirical knowledge, the nasal-toned Kristof recalled a move he made to China to serve as a Beijing bureau chief. Though he had mostly mastered the local language in advance, Kristof said, he still managed to mistake his home’s doorbell—which, in Chinese characters, was labeled “electronic sound-carrying device”—for espionage equipment planted by the Chinese government.

The incident, Kristof said, was a reminder that education is an “essential preparation for life in the real world, but education continues thereafter.”

The well-traveled journalist also stressed to the audience that international excursions were “not just a matter of doing good abroad...you also really do benefit enormously yourself.”

“You come to see your own life and neighborhood in very different ways when you have engaged with other problems around the world,” Kristof added.

He closed the speech with a story of an acquaintance—an aid worker in Darfur—who was so stricken by the horror of her experiences there that she was reduced to tears upon the simple sight of a birdfeeder.

The story, he said, demonstrated “that kind of a simple thing that we see every day can look different when you have been to hell and back and when you see all the things that are out there.”

Kristof wished such a change in perspective upon the members of his audience, drawing his final applause—a standing ovation—after stating that “out there you are going to acquire that wisdom and that empathy and that compassion, that I hope one day will make you fall apart at the sight of a birdfeeder.”

Kristof also drew applause earlier in the speech—including the point when he asserted that Harvard had “lagged in following up” on its initial leadership in the Darfur divestment movement, and expressed hope that the University resume its guidance in that regard.

In an interview later in the day, Kristof noted the potential of the KSG’s most recent graduating class.

“Talking to the K-school grads afterwards, I was surprised by how many of them really have a vision for making a difference in some way,” he said. “I think we’ll be hearing more from them.”

As for Kristof’s daughter—her decision to attend her father’s speech did not turn out half badly, given her receipt of some choice praise from KSG Dean David T. Ellwood.

“I have no doubt that you’d be a terrific masters candidate,” he told the younger Kristof, before introducing her father. “As are so many people in this audience.”

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.